In conversation with Dipani Sutaria

Philippa Ehrlich joined Dipani Sutaria for some of her market surveys in Mumbai, India, and spoke to her about her new research interest in India’s shark fishery.

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Dipani Sutaria, a project leader with the Save Our Seas Foundation, contemplates a small shark she picked up at a fish market in Mumbai, India. Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

Studies suggest that India has the world’s second biggest shark fishery, but very little is known about elasmobranchs along the country’s extensive coastline. Dipani Sutaria has spent decades working on India’s marine mammals but now she, along with a team of young scientists, is embarking on a new journey into the realm of shark research.

How did a dolphin biologist make the shift to studying sharks?

I still work on dolphins, but this project interested me because when CITES came out with its latest recommendations in 2013, we had a meeting to figure out what to do next. That was the first time I encountered the politics surrounding sharks and shark fisheries in India. I found out that we know very little about shark fisheries and shark biology to start with and that is what motivated me to write a research proposal.

What major questions is your project aiming to address?

We are currently looking at sharks off western India, mainly along the coasts of Maharashtra and Gujarat. We want to find out about species diversity and any seasonal change in diversity, as well as about the sex of individuals in this area, their size and when they reach maturity. If we can, we would like to get an idea of which species are more abundant than others. We also want to figure out the supply chain – at least within India, if not all the way to the international level. Lastly, we want to know what fishermen think about conserving sharks and the policies relating to that, and we’d like to get an idea of where they are fishing, how much they fish and how often they catch sharks.

Is it true that India has the second largest shark fishery in the world?

It may have been true in the past and perhaps it is still true relatively speaking. If sharks are still being caught everywhere – opportunistically, that is – then we could rank quite high. At the moment I am not sure. This claim is based on the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] figures of 2006. Shelley Clarke and her colleagues reported that India came just after Indonesia in the shark-fin trade. The numbers are based on imports into Hong Kong and Singapore, not on our exports, so there is a mismatch between their import and our export figures. But if you go down to Kochi and Chennai and those areas, you can still see large numbers of sharks being brought in.

Cover image

Dipani Sutaria, a project leader with the Save Our Seas Foundation, contemplates a small shark she picked up at a fish market in Mumbai, India. Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

Dipani believes that the exchange of information between scientists and fishers is the key to conserving India's sharks. Photo by David Tickler

Why do we know so little about sharks in India?

Marine biologists make up a very small group in India. We do not have any conferences focused only on marine systems. A lot of research has been done on terrestrial systems – maybe because it’s easier logistically and financially – but the cohort of marine biologists who work from a wildlife and conservation perspective is very small. There are a lot of fisheries colleges in India, but most of them are for applied biology relating to aquaculture. Parents expect their kids to do something that’s lucrative in the long term, like medicine or engineering, so doing a Bachelor of Science is the last option. It is changing though. Students are more experimental now, and wildlife biology has a lot of charisma attached to it, so parents are starting to enjoy that their kids are involved with this.

Dipani believes that the exchange of information between scientists and fishers is the key to conserving India's sharks. Photo by David Tickler

Photo by David Tickler

As one of such a small group of shark researchers, do you feel isolated?

We are living in the digital world. I don’t feel isolated. We have a good network of people who are happy to help. This was my first shark project and I didn’t know anything about identification, so I asked Michael Scholl if he could recommend somebody to come and train us. He suggested Rima Jabado. The Save Our Seas Foundation was very open to the idea of sending her across to India. It played a huge role. Everybody was so excited. She gave a presentation to the entire batch of first- and second-year students. She plans to come back once more, maybe towards the end of the project, to look at the data and interviews that we have collected.

Are there any MPAs in India?

Even though we have marine protected areas and sanctuaries, artisanal fisheries are allowed in them. There is nowhere that there are absolutely no fisheries at all. That makes our work difficult as we have no control sites for comparison and no baselines. You can go across grades of fishing intensity but there are no zero-fishing areas anywhere.

Photo by David Tickler

Photo by David Tickler

Do fishermen target sharks directly in India?

They don’t target sharks in Maharashtra or Gujarat. They do have long-line fishing, but that is more for tuna than for sharks. In the mid-1990s shark densities in coastal Gujarat and Maharashtra were probably really high and so fishers brought in more sharks, and bigger ones, but opportunistically. Hence, there was a big shark industry. Fishers caught them more than other fish, so at that time the industry grew and there were truckloads of sharks being taken from our field site in Porbandar to other markets and export centres.

Photo by David Tickler

Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

Is finning an issue?

Indian fishers do not fin live sharks. They land the full shark and everything is used because culturally such wastage is not allowed. The liver is used for oil, the meat is consumed and smaller sharks and fins are dried and sent to places where dry fish is eaten. I could never imagine a fisherman throwing away an entire body and just keeping the fin.

Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

Photo by David Tickler

Do fishermen know that shark stocks are in decline?

They can see that there is a great decrease in fisheries. They do know that many more sharks used to be caught. When we ask them about that, the first thing they talk about is international fishing vessels. They say that foreign fishers come with their big boats and stronger engines and more storage space, and so on. Eventually though, during a long conversation, they will admit that there is too much fishing. They also agree that small-mesh nets need to be banned so that juveniles and fish fry are not caught. They know all this, but they don’t know what to do about it because this is their only occupation.

Photo by David Tickler

Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

What do you think is key to conserving India’s sharks?

I am planning to interview a woman in Porbander who was involved in the shark fisheries 20 years ago. She knows that all the sharks have gone. She has very little of value to sell now and her income has really gone down. I’m interested in getting involved in shark conservation from that angle. I believe that the key is in giving and getting information. For now at least, I don’t see myself working with rules and regulations. We need to work with the fishermen themselves. If one of them were to say, ‘That’s where we see all the baby sharks and maybe we should take care of that area’, then that would be good.

Working with dead sharks is not the easiest or most glamorous work. What keeps you motivated?

I enjoy research. I like interacting with people and I like working with students very much. I love listening to their questions and trying to work out how to answer those questions. I think that’s what drives me: finding out more and figuring out the different sides of the story, getting the whole picture.

Photo by Philippa Ehrlich

Project

Sharks for sale in India

Indian fishermen catch the second largest number of sharks in the world. Dipani and her team are collecting data in manic fish markets to create a baseline understanding of the country’s sharks and how to save them.